The Jewish Gladiators of Rome

As the sun’s rays start to play on Rome’s Coloseum, Mordechai Piazza Osep is setting up folding tables. It is not even 8:00 in the morning. Three men dressed in gladiator gear chat by the Metro entrance. The first batches of the day’s tourists are just starting to trickle in, posing for impossible shots of themselves against the massive stones. The gladiators are soon to become props in their classic “Rome-visit” photos.

“Good morning,” Mordechai greets a passerby, striking her up in a conversation that turns to the visitors travels from New York. When he finds out she’s Jewish, the businessman who works in the ring outside the Coliseum waves his arm across the scene of licensed vendors. “Everybody who works here: Jewish,” he says. Well, mostly, he qualifies.

Every so often, Rabbi Yitzchok Hazan, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Rome, comes by to help the Jewish men in the area don the prayer boxes known as tefillin. This week, he and his staff will see some of them at Rosh Hashanah services.

Mordechai takes a break from lining up postcards and other tourist fodder to sit against a rock and explain how the whole thing came to be. His father Moshe worked in the same business 50 years ago, and now Mordechai, who grew up in Rome and got married in Israel, does the same.

“It’s a good business. You can make a good life,” he says. He tells of his three sisters and his brother, about his divorce and his 23-year-old daughter. He runs through his day; how he arrives at seven and works until mid-afternoon alongside the other mostly Jewish sellers, who in themselves are a community. He says it’s always been like this.

“And 95 percent eat kosher,” he elaborates. Some don’t work Saturdays, and on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they’re more likely to see each other in one of Rome’s many synagogues than outside the ancient amphitheater. They take those days off.

Hazan says their faith is something to admire.

“When it comes to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they close,” he explains.

If Hazan can’t visit one day, one of his colleagues will go in his place.

“Chabad reaches out to everybody,” he states. “We’re involved with every Jew.”

The rabbi tells the story of a student of his who sells tourist knick knacks by the Trevi Fountain, another popular tourist hub. He became religious, and these days can be seen saying his morning prayers, draped in his prayer shawl, next to his cart.

“I feel very happy some people put on tefillin here in the morning,” says Mordechai, adding that he considers himself a friend of Hazan, who in addition to reaching out in the Coloseum gave Mordechai advice when he was seeking to speak with the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, several years ago in Brooklyn.

Mordechai explains that he himself works hard to give Jewish travelers and Israelis on Passover vacation advice on where to eat, what to do and where to go.

“It’s very important,” he states simply. Why not help another Jew?

As the first group of gladiators prepares to strategically disburse through the building throngs of tourists, a question regarding their identity leads one man to pull up his sleeve to display a watch with a menorah on it. Another speaks of the local Chabad House and how it serves as a beacon of Jewish tradition.

“If you’re looking for a Jew,” one vendor says, underscoring the surprises that can be found in Rome, “you’ve come to the right place.”